The Right Result For The Wrong Reason

September 01, 1999

What if they built a prison and there was nobody to put in it? That's just what might have happened if the state had been quicker to build the lock-up for 10- to 12-year-olds authorized and funded by the Illinois General Assembly five years ago.

That it was not built is a stroke of luck; that it almost was is a testament to the folly of basing public policy on politically motivated panic-peddling.

Stunned by a couple of high-profile murders committed by Chicago youngsters and fearful that they were harbingers of a predicted epidemic of very young violent criminals, legislators in 1994 approved construction of a youth prison for children who had previously been thought too young to be incarcerated.

But construction was delayed by a lawsuit until 1997. And a good thing, too, because by then it was clear that the proposed 30-bed facility would have plenty of empty beds--all of them, in fact, except for the ones occupied by kids involved in the two murders that sparked the legislation.

Scholars' projections that a generation of preadolescent "superpredators" was poised to wreak havoc on society proved unfounded, though many politicians who embraced the myth to boost their anti-crime image refused to give it up. The Illinois Department of Corrections, understandably, refused to give up the money earmarked for prison construction.

So earlier this month, six teenage girls moved into the powder-pink wing of the Illinois Youth Center-Chicago, a $9 million facility designed to house as many as 44 female delinquents as well as 86 young men in transition from youth prison to parole. And far from being an empty political gesture, the facility in its new role is filling a genuine need.

Previously, the only place for female juvenile offenders was a youth center in Warrenville that housed about 145 girls in a space designed for 90. What's more, the number of female offenders is growing fast--122 percent over the last six years in Illinois. And as for those 86 young men, they probably need all the transitional help they can get.

Thus, a misguided impulse to imprison 10-year-olds has evolved into an effort to house delinquent girls more humanely and help incarcerated young men successfully move back into society. It's a heartening shift and a laudable project, however accidental.